The ARIMNet Consortium has organized a common meeting in Rome on
November 14 & 15, 2012. During the first day, ARIMNet call results were
presented. Presentations of the 10 selected projects of the Call 2011
were given.

Kick-off meetings for the projects of the 2011 Call
Four projects have already organized their kick-off meetings : Domestic,
Medileg, Swipe and APmed have launched their project respectively in
Greece, Tunisia, Poland and France.

Signature of the ARIMNet contracts in Morocco, September 7th, 2012
The Minister for Higher Education (funding agency) and the leaders of
the Research Establishments implied in the selected projects have signed
the ARIMNet contracts. The official ceremony was held on Friday,
September 7th, 2012

The
countries of the Mediterranean basin face a number of similar problems in
relation to agriculture
and food security, mainly as regards the use and management of natural
resources, such as soil and water, crop protection and threats to the
security and sustainability of agricultural production resulting from
climate change. These issues need to be identified and addressed through a
stronger scientific cooperation between the EU Members and other countries
of the Mediterranean area.

The project is expected to help
coordinate national research activities and identify common research programmes
among the countries of the Mediterranean area, fight fragmentation and exploit
synergies.

The very basis of ARIMNet is mapping the partners’ national research programmes
in order to identify lacks, redundancies, complementarities, and synergies. The
project will also identify partners’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats. Based on this information, research programmes will be modified in
order to address uncovered topics, avoid overlapping, organise complementarities
and maximise synergies. Joint activities constitute another pillar of the
project. It includes integrating activities such as the creation of a web-based
information exchange platform, take-up activities of best practices, joint
training, sharing of scarce resources like expensive equipment. Last not least,
ARIMNet will result in a joint vision of agricultural research in the
Mediterranean Area and recommend a strategic agenda to reach the objectives.